Work and thoughts in progress

Hulah Valley – almost there

As you can see the Hulah Valley picture has been coming on nicely. Unfortunately the photo is still with my crappy camera on my Nokia 6123 phone (which is not bad as two year old phone cameras go… but all the same not quite up to notch in terms of picture quality) as I haven’t had the opportunity yet to get my real camera back from its repair in Jerusalem.

The picture certainly has all the right depth and that misty morning look. I have been working on the foreground trees and there is still a way to go to integrate them truly and make them harmonize more with the rest of the picture. I hope to get some more time on this tonight and maybe even finish though in all likelihood I’ll make the final touches at the beginning of next week.

The underpainting here was quite a strong cadmium yellow as opposed to my usual mild underpaintings. I have read recently on several blogs including Larry Seiler (and here) and Empty Easel on Jenifer McChristian where they have been using quite garish pink and orange underpainting which benefits the picture as a whole and ties it together. I’ve got to try this out and be a bit more daring with my underpaints.